[May 27, 2014]By
now everyone likely has read the news or heard media reports about
Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, a 27-year-old woman sentenced by a
Sudanese judge to be executed for being a Christian, which is
considered in Sudan’s Islam religion as apostasy.

The woman is eight months pregnant with her second child and had been
accused of being an apostate because she married a Christian man and has
refused to renounce her Christian faith. Under the Islamic sharia law under
which Sudan has practiced as a national religion since 1983, the woman’s
“crime” is considered an insult against the faith of the Islamic religion
and is punishable by death. The woman had a three day period in which she
could have renounced her Christian beliefs and accepted the Islamic faith in
order to save herself from the punishment of being hanged until death.

Despite objections from U.N. spokespersons citing the inhumanity of a death
sentence for choosing one’s religion, the authorities in Sudan have refused
to pull back the sentence. Once her baby is born she will be given 100
lashes for “adultery” which consisted of living with a man who is Christian.
She and her husband were married in 2012. At the birth of the couple’s
second child Ms. Ibrahim will be hanged until she is dead. "This outrageous
conviction must be overturned and Ms. Ibrahim must be immediately released,"
insisted the U.N. experts. But freedom of religion is not an option in any
Muslim nation; especially where sharia law prevails.

Ms. Ibrahim was charged with publicly renouncing Islam, however, she had
never professed that faith. It was only imposed on her because her father
claimed the faith; therefore she must have the faith as well. During the
three days she had to renounce her Christian faith she refused to accept the
Muslim faith in which she never practiced. That action sealed her sentence
of death.

Ms. Ibrahim is being held with her 20-month-old son in jail with her. She
and her young son are being held at the Omdurman’s Women Prison near
Khartoum. "The imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on pregnant
women or recent mothers is inherently cruel and leads to a violation of the
absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment," the U.N. officials said.

Have we remained silent too long against speaking out against
those whose laws are so repressive? Where are the women's groups in
this country who fought for women's rights, but say absolutely
nothing about the wholesale destruction of women in the Middle East
and Africa under Sharia law? Men are allowed to beat women, own them
as property, divorce them on a whim, marry them against their will
as teenagers, and treat them as if they are less intelligent than
men. They control the lives of women in every way; even as to how
they dress or are seen in public. American women, even those who are
ultra liberal, travel to the Middle Eastern and African Islamic
countries and wear the traditional dress to cover their faces and
entire bodies. That is something they would never tolerate anywhere
in the Western world. Yet here they are, never saying a word about
the treatment of millions of women in the Islamic world. Where is
the National Organization of Women? Where are the Feminist groups
who protest to ensure "women's rights" around the world? They are
conspicuously silent when it comes to defending their counterparts
in the Islamic world.

The actions of the Islamic world that strips women of their human
rights, kills them for the “honor” of the men who use them for their
own pleasure causes them to lose all credibility in a world with
sane reason. Their behavior removes all doubt they have the ability
to dabble in terror and inflict great harm on those who are the most
defenseless among us. Their credibility is lost and can only be
regained by first accepting their behavior as detestable. Their
credibility will improve with sane, reasonable people around the
world when those same people begin to hear a large number of Imams,
Ayatollahs and other high-ranking persons in the Islamic faith stand
up and denounce the atrocious practices seen daily under the
administration of sharia law as well as punish those who are
creating violence against others, including their own women in their
culture.